Rammstein (pronounced is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band, founded in Berlin in 1994, and consisting of Till Lindemann (lead vocals), Richard Z. Kruspe (lead guitar and backing vocals), Paul H. Landers (rhythm guitar, backing vocals), Oliver "Ollie" Riedel (bass guitar), Christoph "Doom" Schneider (drums and electronic percussion) and Christian "Flake" Lorenz (keyboards). The band is widely accepted as part of the Neue Deutsche Härte scene, alongside bands such as Oomph! and Die Krupps. Their sound has been dubbed as Tanz-Metal (lit. "Dance Metal"). Their songs are performed almost exclusively in German, but they have also performed some sections of their songs in other languages such as Russian ("Moskau"), English ("Amerika", "Stripped"), French ("Amour") and Spanish ("Te Quiero Puta"). As of 2005, they had sold over 10 million records worldwide. Rammstein's entire catalogue is published by Universal Music Group. Since its formation, Rammstein has had no changes in lineup.
Rammstein takes its name indirectly from the West German town of Ramstein-Miesenbach, the site of the flight show disaster on 28 August 1988. The band's signature song, "Rammstein", is a commemoration of the tragedy that took place at the Ramstein Air Base. The extra "m" in the band's name makes it translate literally as "ramming stone" to convey the Teutonic sound of their music. In a short period before the band became well known, they performed using the name "Rammstein-Flugschau" (literally meaning Rammstein-Airshow).
Although the majority of their songs are written in German, Rammstein has had success across the world. It has been confirmed that in 2007, the band has reunited from their vacation and has begun working on their sixth studio album, which has been planned for release in Autumn 2009.
History
Rammstein was founded by guitarist Richard Z. Kruspe. In 1989, he escaped to West Berlin and started the band, Orgasm Death Gimmicks. At that time, he was heavily influenced by American music, especially that of Kiss. After the Berlin Wall came down, he moved back home to chwerin, where Till Lindemann worked as a basket-weaver and played drums in the band First Arsch (loosely translated as "Apex Ass"). At this time, Richard lived with Oliver Riedel, of the band The Inchtabokatables, and Christoph "Doom" Schneider (of Die Firma). Richard realized that the music he had previously created did not properly suit him; He envisioned something that would combine machines as well as the sound of hard guitars. The three started working together on a new project. Richard soon found it extremely difficult to write both music and lyrics at the same time, so he persuaded Lindemann to join Rammstein. Richard first discovered Till when he overheard him singing while he was working. A contest was held in Berlin for amateur bands in 1994, the winner of which would receive the opportunity to record a four track demo CD in a professional studio. Kruspe, Schneider, Riedel and Lindemann entered and won the contest, which caught the attention of Paul H. Landers, who wanted in on the project upon hearing their demo. To complete their sound, Rammstein then attempted to recruit Christian "Flake" Lorenz, who had played with Paul H. Landers previously in Feeling B. At first Lorenz was hesitant, but eventually agreed to join the band. Rammstein began to record their first studio album entitled Herzeleid in March 1995 with producer Jacob Hellner. They released their first single Du riechst so gut on 17 August and later released the album on 24 September 1995. Later that same year, they toured with Clawfinger in Warsaw and Prague. Rammstein headlined a tour of their own through Germany from 2 December to 22 December consisting of 17 shows which helped to boost the band’s popularity. They then went on several tours throughout early 1996, releasing their second single entitled Seemann on 8 January 1996. On 27 March, Rammstein performed on MTV's Hanging Out in London; their first performance in the UK. Rammstein's first major boost in popularity outside Germany came when music director Trent Reznor chose two Rammstein songs, "Heirate Mich" and "Rammstein", for David Lynch's film, Lost Highway. The soundtrack for the film was released in the US in the fall of 1996 and later throughout Europe in April 1997. Rammstein then went on to tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland from September to October 1996, performing an anniversary concert on 27 September called "100 years of Rammstein". Guests to the concert included Moby, Bobo and The Berlin Session Orchestra, Berlin director Gert Hof was responsible for the light show. Rammstein started recording Sehnsucht in November 1996 at the Temple Studios in Malta. The album was again produced by Jacob Hellner. The first single off of the album, entitled Engel was released on 1 April 1997 and later reached gold status in Germany on 23 May. This prompted the release of a fan edition of the single, named Engel Fan Edition. This contained two previously unreleased songs, "Feuerräder" and "Wilder Wein". Release of the second single from the album "Sehnsucht" was "Du Hast", which hit the German single charts August 1997 at number 5. Rammstein then continued touring in the summer whilst Sehnsucht was released on 22 August 1997. The album reached number 1 after only two weeks in the charts. Simultaneously, Herzeleid and both the singles off Sehnsucht (Du Hast and Engel) were in the Top 20 of the German charts. Rammstein continued to headline sold out shows throughout Europe in September, October and November 1997 before releasing their cover of the Kraftwerk song, "Das Modell". The single included another unreleased song entitled Kokain. On 5 December 1997, Rammstein embarked on their first tour of the United States with KMFDM. On 22–23 August 1998, Rammstein played to over 17,000 fans at the Wuhlheide in Berlin; the biggest show the band have ever played there up to that date. Supporting acts were Danzig, Nina Hagen, Joachim Witt and Alaska. The show was professionally filmed, intended to be released on their upcoming live DVD, Live aus Berlin. Rammstein embarked on a live tour with Korn, Ice Cube, Orgy and Limp Bizkit called the Family Values tour in September through to late October 1998. To further continue their success in the US, Sehnsucht received Gold record status on 2 November. The Band was nominated at the MTV European Music Awards for Best Rock Act and performed Du Hast live on 12 November of that year. Rammstein had further success in 1999, starting off the year in February with a nomination for Best Metal Performance at the 42nd-annual Grammy Awards. A year after it was filmed, the Live aus Berlin concert was released on CD on 30 August 1999, with a limited edition double CD also available. Two weeks after it was released, Live aus Berlin went to number one in the German Album Charts. On 13 September and 26 November 1999 the video and DVD versions of the concert were released respectively. Rammstein's album Mutter recording took place in the south of France between May 2000 and June 2000, and was later mixed in Stockholm in October of that year. During Christmas 2000, Rammstein released an MP3 of "Links 2 3 4" as a taster for their new album. 2001 was a busy year for Rammstein, starting in January and February with the band playing the Big Day Out festival in Australia and New Zealand. January also heralded the shooting of the video for their upcoming single, "Sonne", recorded in Potsdam at Babelsberger Filmstudios from 13–15 January 2001. The video was released on 29 January 2001. The single for "Sonne" was released on 12 February 2001 in Europe, featuring an instrumental version of the song, two remixes by Clawfinger and "Adios" from the upcoming album. Mutter was released on 2 April 2001, sparking another Rammstein tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. On 14 May, the second single off the album, "Links 2 3 4", was released, along with a video of the single on 18 May. After a tour throughout Europe in June, the band then toured the U.S., Canada and Mexico from June to August 2001. "Ich will", the third single from the album, was released on 10 September 2001 and a Tour edition of the Mutter album was released, featuring alternative artwork and live versions of "Ich will", "Links 2-3-4", "Sonne" and "Spieluhr". From 8–12 January 2002, Rammstein traveled to Prague to participate in a minor scene from the film xXx. The band is seen in the opening scene of the action film performing their song "Feuer frei!" in a concert. "Feuer frei!" was released across Europe as the first single from the xXx soundtrack on 14 October 2002. Rammstein released two remixes of the song, Furthermore, the single's track listing included "Du Hast" and "Bück Dich" cover versions by Battery. The video for the single was edited by Rob Cohen, which contains part Rammstein performance at the beginning of the film and part snippets from the film itself. Rammstein recorded Reise, Reise at the El Cortijo studio in southern Spain between November 2003 and December 2003, it was later mixed at Toytown studio in Stockholm, Sweden in April and May 2004. The first single from the album was "Mein Teil", released on 26 July 2004. The video was shot in the Arena, in the Treptow district of Berlin. Outdoor shooting took place at the Deutsche Oper (Opera House) U-Bahn station on Bismarckstrasse. The director was Zoran Bihac, who also filmed the "Links 2-3-4" video. The "Amerika" video was filmed on 6–7 August 2004 in the ruins of the former cement works in Rüdersdorf near Berlin, Germany under the direction of Jörn Heitmann (who also directed the "Ich will" video, among others). The space suits for the moon scenes were borrowed from Hollywood and 240 tons of ash were needed to create the moon landscape. The video premiered on 20 August 2004. The second single from Reise, Reise was "Amerika", released on 13 September 2004. With the album released on 27 September, it went straight to top 10 charts throughout Europe. According to the Billboard charts, Rammstein were now the most successful German-language band of all time. Rammstein then toured Germany through November and some of December 2004, releasing the single "Ohne Dich" on 22 November. In February 2005, Rammstein toured Europe again. By 28 February 2005, Rammstein had played 21 concerts in front of more than 200,000 spectators in ten countries. It was on this tour that the band was faced with several lawsuits resulting from severe fire breathing accidents involving audience members. "Keine Lust" was the fourth single released from Reise, Reise on 28 February 2005. From 27 May to 30 July 2005, Rammstein played festivals across Europe. Footage from these concerts eventually ended up on Rammstein's live DVD Völkerball, released in November 2006. In August 2005, Rammstein revealed the name of their latest studio album, Rosenrot. Their first single from the new album, "Benzin", was released on 5 October 2005, with its video premiere on 16 September 2005. The album Rosenrot was released worldwide on 28 October 2005. Directly following the release, the album continued the success of its predecessor, Reise, Reise, placing on top 10 charts in 20 different countries. 16 December 2005 marked the release of the title track on the album Rosenrot. The video for Mann Gegen Mann was released on 6 February 2006, with the single being released on 3 March. On 19 February 2006, Rammstein had an asteroid named after them, 110393 Rammstein. On 17 November the first Rammstein Live DVD since Live aus Berlin from 1998 was released. Völkerball shows concert-performances by the band in England, France, Japan and Russia. The Special Edition is extended by a second DVD, which contains the documentaries "Anaconda in the net" by Mathilde Bonnefoy and the "Making of the album Reise, Reise" by Rammstein guitarist Paul Landers. The limited edition was released as a large black and white photo-book with photos by Frederic Batier, who had accompanied the band through their recent tours. The photo-book edition contains two DVDs and two live albums. The band took a time out in 2006, and began work again in 2007. In an interview with German rapper Bushido, who contributed to the Electro Ghetto Remix of Amerika, on 21 January 2007, Bushido reported recording a song with Rammstein, called "Vergiss uns nicht" ("Don't forget us"). In this interview, Bushido also mentioned that he was unsure whether it would be on their "Best of" album or not. This was the first mention of a "Best of" album, or the new album all together. In addition, keyboardist Christian "Flake" Lorenz confirmed this in an interview with Metal Hammer Germany in November, stating that they would have most likely released a new album in 2008. The band did not tour during 2007 due to album production. Their website confirmed work on a new album, but no word of a "Best of" album has yet been mentioned. In January 2008, guitarist Richard Kruspe confirmed on the Talking Metal Podcast that Rammstein was recording an album as they spoke, during that same interview he confirmed a "big world tour" following the next album to contain U.S. dates. On 4 November, the band finished the pre-production in Berlin and went to the Henson Studio in LA. After 7 intensive weeks they had recorded the drums, guitars and most of the vocals. According to the newsletter, the production of the album will take some time and a release is not planned before autumn 2009 and the first single will be released before summer 2009. Two very short (less than two minutes) "making of" videos have been released during the development of the album. One video, released on the band's website, shows drummer Christoph "Doom" Schneider recording drums for one of the tracks, and the second, released on the band's MySpace page, features keyboardist Flake Lorenz practicing notes for another track.
Style
Although Rammstein is often generalized as Neue Deutsche Härte, its music spans a variety of related styles, including industrial hard rock, heavy metal, grunge and electronic music with influences of punk rock, pop music and gothic rock, due to their use of keyboards to emulate strings, choirs or pianos. The band was influenced by Laibach, a Slovenian neo-classical and industrial group. Other influences include Oomph! and Ministry, but the contrast between individual songs, such as "Du riechst so gut", "Bestrafe mich", "Ohne dich" and "Te quiero puta!" makes the band difficult to classify, though most simply refer to them as industrial metal.
The band has a flair for costumes of all sorts, both in live shows and in videos. In the "Keine Lust" video, all members of the band except Flake were dressed in fat suits. In the "Amerika" video, all members of the band wore space suits. Live, the band experiments even more with costumes. In the Völkerball concert, among others, Till changed costumes between songs, dressed accordingly for each. For example, in "Mein Teil", he was dressed as a butcher, in "Reise, Reise", a sailor. The rest of the band each wears their own preferred costume, but none as outlandish or themed as Till's. Rammstein's style has tended to divide critics, some of whom have responded with memorable comments. Jam Showbiz (April 2001) described Mutter as "music to invade Poland to". New Zealand's Southland Times (December 17, 1999) suggested that Till Lindemann's "booming, sub-sonic voice" would send "the peasants fleeing into their barns and bolting their doors", while the New York Times (January 9, 2005) commented that on the stage, "Mr. Lindemann gave off an air of such brute masculinity and barely contained violence that it seemed that he could have reached into the crowd, snatched up a fan, and bitten off his head." Stephen Thomas Erlewine of Allmusic commented that "their blend of industrial noise, grinding metal guitars, and operatic vocals is staggeringly powerful." "We just push boundaries", said Till Lindemann in an interview with rock magazine Kerrang!. "We can't help it if people don't like those boundaries being pushed."
Lyrics
Nearly all of Rammstein's songs are in German. However, the band has recorded English versions of Engel ("Angel"), Du hast ("You have", which is most commonly confused with "You hate", since "hast" and "hasst" sound phonetically identical. In the English version of the song, the lyric is translated to "You hate" for stylization purposes.), and Amerika, as well as covers of the songs Stripped (Depeche Mode) and Pet Sematary (The Ramones). There is also a cover of a song Schtiel (Aria) entirely in Russian. In addition, the songs Amerika, Stirb nicht vor mir//Don't die before I do and Moskau ("Moscow") contain not only German verses, but also English and Russian choruses, respectively; Te quiero puta! ("I want you, whore!") is entirely in Spanish. Oliver Riedel commented that, "German language suits heavy metal music. French might be the language of love, but German is the language of anger". The lyrics of Rammstein and above all their talk by singer Till Lindemann are an essential element of music and shape the perception by fans and a wider public. This is, among other things that are often very controversial, and taboo subjects such as sadomasochism ("Bück Dich", "Rein Raus" and "Bestrafe Mich"), homosexuality ("Mann gegen Mann"), incest ("Spiel mit mir" and "Tier"), pedophilia ("Tier" and "Halleluja"), necrophilia ("Heirate mich"), Pyromania ("Benzin" and "Hilf mir"), cannibalism ("Mein Teil"), the game with religious images ("Asche zu Asche", "Engel") having sex and violence ("Wollt ihr das Bett in Flammen sehen").
Wordplay is a fundamental component of Rammstein's lyrics. In many instances, the lyrics are phrased such that they can be interpreted in several ways. The song "Du hast", for example, is a play on German marriage vows (Willst Du, bis der Tod euch scheidet, treu ihr sein für alle Tage? – "Will you, until Death separates you, be faithful to her for the rest of your days?"). In the song, the traditional affirmative response, Ja ("Yes"), is replaced by its negation Nein ("No"). The final repetition of this line further perverts the meaning of the original vows through a minor change in the wording Willst Du, bis zum Tod der Scheide ... (Will you, until the Death of the vagina ...). The song starts, in fact, with a play on words: Du... Du hast... Du hast mich... meaning "You have me". This line is often mistaken for "You hate me", because in German, there is only a very subtle distinction (hast is pronounced slightly softer than hasst) between the pronunciation of Du hasst which means "you hate" and "Du hast" which means "you have". The word game is later resolved as the line is completed; Du hast mich gefragt ("You [have] asked me"). Confusingly, the band did also make an English version of the song named "You hate" which was not translated directly from "Du hast".
While many arguments about "Du Hast" are around, it is known that Rammstein used this wording to mislead and create humour in the song. It was a play with the pronunciation of words, causing many non-native speakers of German to be confused.
Members * Richard Z. Kruspe - lead guitar, backing vocals
* Paul H. Landers - rhythm guitar, backing vocals
* Till Lindemann - lead vocals
* Oliver "Ollie" Riedel - bass guitar
* Christoph "Doom" Schneider - drums, percussion
* Christian "Flake" Lorenz - keyboards, samples
